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On today’s episode of Emerging Creatively Tutorials TV (ECT TV) I’ll show you how to make a simple necklace with an arrowhead, wire and leather cord.

Even if you don’t have an arrowhead or do not wish to make an arrowhead necklace, you’ll find creative inspiration from my inspiration and a technique for crimping cord ends with wire.

Here’s today’s video episode:

Creative Inspiration:

I was recently on vacation in upstate New York. During our trip we went to the Secret Caverns in Howes Cave, New York (which I highly recommend!) I got a couple arrowheads there. (Or really, reproduction arrowheads.)

I am part Native American. I am just getting into tracing my family tree again, so I don’t have a lot of information, but from what I remember my grandmother telling me we’re from the Mohawk Tribe. During our trip we drove through a Mohawk Reservation, which was really exciting.

So this necklace is really about my heritage and also a souvenir from my trip.

Creativity Tip (Heritage):

I invite you to think about your heritage and think about how you could incorporate that into a jewelry design. You might think about specific relics or symbols or perhaps colors or specific gemstones. How can you incorporate those into your design?

Alternative Creativity Tip (Travel):

Whenever you go on a trip, it changes you. You learn new things, see new things and experience new things. Think about a vacation or road trip you’ve taken. How could you reflect that experience into a jewelry design?

Or you can try my Inspired eCourse that starts immediately after Rediscover Your Creativity & Make Jewelry. Get creativity activities and art journal prompts, make art journal pages, take inspiration from those pages to inspire your jewelry making.

Hi and welcome to another episode of Emerging Creatively Tutorials TV (ECT TV)!

Today I’ll show you how to make a fun pendant with lots of jump rings!

Watch the video here:

Step-by-Step Photo Instructions:

These are the same instructions that are in the video, but in step-by-step photos.

Tools and Materials:

Jump Rings – I used many 7mm jump rings, but you can experiment with whatever size you have on hand.

Wire – I used 14 gauge aluminum wire which was soft. I also used 16 gauge wire that was pretty hard (it didn’t have a hardness listed since it was coated copper) and it was difficult to use. Probably any gauge from 18 to 14 would work great.*

Chain

Clasp

3 4mm beads of your choice (optional)

3 head pins (optional – but if you use beads, you’ll need headpins)

Wire cutters

Round nose pliers

Chain nose pliers

Bent nose pliers

Ring mandrel or other cylindrical object to form a circle around

*Instead of wire, you could use a closed circle finding and bypass that part. However, if your circle does not open at all, you’ll have to open and close all of your jump rings around the circle individually.

If you need a refresher on how to open and close jump rings, see the video. I show how to do that at the beginning.

Step #1

Wrap your wire around your ring mandrel or other cylindrical object to form a circle. This is the base of your pendant, so decide on how large you would like it. I wrapped around my ring mandrel at size 14.

Leave some overlapping wire on each side and then cut the wire.

Step #2

Start sliding closed jump rings onto the circle. Continue until you get to the point where the wire is overlapping.

Note: Before sliding your jump rings on to the circle, check to make sure that they’re all closed properly. Sometimes jump rings come kind of open or crooked, etc., so you want to double check.

Step #3

Cross the wires and close the circle. Make sure it’s secure. Try to get the ends as close to the circle as possible.

The main thing is that it’s secure. It doesn’t really matter how ugly it looks because we’re covering it with jump rings anyway.

(I added a photo without jump rings so you can see it better.)

If it doesn’t feel secure, you could alternatively use a smaller gauge wire (maybe 20 or 22 gauge) and wrap around the overlapped portion of the circle.

Step #4

Now continue to add jump rings until the entire circle is filled with jump rings, but now you’ll have to add each jump ring individually.

Step #5

Cut your chain to the length you would like your necklace and separate into 2 chains. Choose a jump ring from the pendant, open it and add the last link of the chain in and close the jump ring.

About an inch over from the first chain, choose another jump ring and open it and add the other chain.

Step #6

Add a lobster clasp to the end of one chain.

Step #7

Add a couple of jump rings to the end of the other chain.

Step #8

You may like the pendant as is without any bead dangles. If that’s the case, you’re done!

If you want to add a few bead dangles, continue reading.

Step #9

Slide a bead onto a headpin.

Hold the headpin in round nose pliers just above the bead, leaving a little space.

Step #10

Wrap the headpin around the round nose pliers and in between the bead and the pliers.

Step #11

The loop will not be centered over the bead, so straighten it. I hold the loop in my chain nose pliers and straighten it while I wrap the end around one time.

Step #12

Now, still holding the loop in chain nose pliers (switching hands) wrap the wire around for a total of 3 times (so 2 additional times.) Use bent nose pliers to help you wrap the wire or just use your hand if you prefer.

Cut off any excess wire.

Step #13

Use your chain nose pliers to make sure that the end isn’t poking out.

Repeat three times or for however many bead dangles you’d like to add to your pendant.

Step #14

Find the middle of the pedant on the opposite side of where you placed the chain. Open a jump ring and add a bead dangle.

Check to make sure it’s the middle. You can simply open the jump ring, remove the bead dangle and move it to a different jump ring if you didn’t get it in the middle the first time.

Step #15

Add the other 2 bead dangles. I counted 5 jump rings on each side from the first bead dangle and added each of the other 2 bead dangles.

And that’s your completed pendant!

I hope you enjoyed learning how to make this jewelry piece! I would love to see what you made! So take a photo and post it in any of the following ways:

Click “reply” to leave a comment here. There’s an option to upload a photo. (Even if you don’t have a photo, I would love to hear what you think about this tutorial!)

(Right now I’m working on a new eCourse that will be coming up in 2016 and I’ll tell you all about that at the end of November!)

Did you know that I send out a downloadable/printable PDF of each ECT TV tutorial to my newsletter subscribers each time a new ECT TV episode is released? This is the only way to get the PDF free. (You can purchase past PDFs of episode here: Vol 1 and Vol 2.)

Just sign up for my newsletter and you’ll get future PDFs right in your inbox! (You also get my Free 14 Day Intro to Jewelry Making mini eCourse right in your inbox automatically when you sign up!)

I remember when I finally figured out jump rings. It was like the heavens opened up and my whole world changed.

Well, maybe not quite all that, but it was pretty exciting. Once you figure out this basic skill, you have a lot more options. And it’s pretty simple, you just need to know how to do it.

Here’s a short video on how to open and close jump rings if you haven’t had this life-changing experience yet. 🙂

Even if you know how to properly open and close jump rings they can still cause you trouble. They can open when they shouldn’t, don’t close properly, look wrong and just be all around frustrating. I use jump rings in a lot (if not most) of my jewelry projects, so you might as well get used to them!

Here are a few common reasons you might be having problems with jump rings:

Jump ring is too thin

If your jump ring is too thin (the gauge is too thin), the jump ring will have trouble holding its shape as well as holding together whatever else it’s holding. If your jump rings keep opening, this might be the issue. In this case use a thicker jump ring.

Jump ring is too soft

If the hardness of your jump ring is too soft, again, it can’t hold it’s shape and your project together. If this is the case you can harden the wire by opening and closing your jump ring several times. (Like I do at the end of the video above when I’m closing the jump ring.)

Gap in your jump ring after you close it

First make sure you’ve closed it properly.

However, this can happen sometimes even if you do close it properly. Wire tends to spring back wherever it wants and doesn’t always go where you want it to go. To fix it, wiggle the wire back and forth, opening and closing the jump ring until it clicks into place.

Jump ring isn’t a perfect circle

This can happen, too, even if you closed the jump ring properly. Sometimes you make a mistake that you didn’t realize or sometimes the jump ring wasn’t perfect when you got it. I sometimes try to fix it, but usually it’s much less frustrating to just get a new jump ring and start again. Usually it’s not worth your frustration.

I hope these help you with any issues you may have with jump rings. If you have any other questions, leave a comment (reply) below and I’ll try to help you!

Have you gotten my Wire Wrapping for Beginners book? There is an eBook version that you receive right away or the print version that you can hold in your own hands that’s mailed to you.

Make a loop on each end of the wire. One loop will go up and the other will go down. (This will make more sense as you keep reading through these instructions.)

I made a relatively large loop, so I held the wire in my round nose pliers close to the handle.

To make a loop hole the wire in round nose pliers. The wire should be at the top of the pliers, but not poking through the top and you should be able to run your finger over the top.

Twist your wrist away from you while wrapping the wire around the pliers. Go as far as your wrist will allow then readjust the wire on the pliers and complete the loop.

Step #3

Use chain nose pliers to bend up the loop and make sure that the loops are facing opposite directions. You can twist or bend the wire to accomplish this.

Step #4

Open the loops just like you would open a jump ring. Do not pull the loop apart, but instead open it front and back and maintain the circle shape.

Step #5

Place the wire from the bracelet in the loops and close the loops. You can see in this photo how one is facing up and one is facing down.

Step #6

Make sure your bracelet is in the shape that you want it and hammer it with a nylon or rawhide hammer. Hold the part where the double wire is off the steel block (you won’t be able to hammer that part.)

Hammer gently to harden the wire. The nylon or rawhide hammer will harden the wire without flattening it.

Step #7

Add charms and/or bead dangles as you like using jump rings.

Need help opening and closing jump rings? Click here for a short helpful video.

To keep your charms in kind of one spot, place them where the wire is doubled and make sure that your loops are closed completely. Otherwise they’ll move around the entire bracelet.

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Wire Wrapping for Beginners is a take at your own pace eCourse. You can purchase this eCourse anytime and get started immediately!
Learn all the components and techniques you need to make earrings, bracelets, charm bracelets, necklaces and rings!